Leisa: Hello, I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is April C. Day, the President of the Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance; April, welcome to Women Mean Business.

April: Thank you very much Leisa.

Leisa: I’m very excited to have you here. I know you guys have a big event coming up May 27th.

April: Yes.

Leisa: Tell us quickly about that and then more about the Women Business Enterprise Alliance.

April: Well, so our event is the Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance Business Expo.

Leisa: Okay.

April: And it’s an amazing half day/full day event. It’s May 27th through May 28th, the first day is our 20th anniversary celebration so it’s a night that you want to come out and be strategic about your networking, meet new people and connect with people that you already have relationships with. And then on the 28th we have a huge ribbon cutting ceremony to open our exhibit floor where we have about 125 exhibitors that are small business owners, women business owners, corporations, federal government entities; the people that are in the know about small business today. And we have workshops, we have one-on-one matchmaking; when I say this is a big day it’s a big day so you’ve got to plan it. You have your morning stuff and then we have an awards luncheon, then we come right back for afternoon workshops, more matchmaking and more networking on the floor.

Leisa: Well that’s fabulous. So the main purpose of the Women’s Business Enterprise Alliance is?

April: The main purpose is to get business. We want to make sure all the procurement opportunities – with all of the contracting that’s going on, with all the build that’s going on in Houston – that women business owners have a piece of that pie if not the whole pie, right? But we’ll share. But it’s all about connecting our women business owners to corporate, federal and government entities for those jobs that are out there.

Leisa: So that’s the main mission of the organization?

April: It is. So our main mission is to certify women business owners and when you get certified you’re certified as a Women Business Enterprise Alliance. And so we open up procurement opportunities and business opportunities for women business owners as well as those entities that want to procure or purchase from a woman business owner. We also provide opportunities for B to B business; so women business owners who want to do business with women business owners. There’s two other pieces to what we do and that second piece is the connectivity; knowing that there’s someone else that’s in that entrepreneur roller coaster ride with you and were there from the start to the launch to the sustainability to when you want to value your company and sell it and become multi-million dollar, right? And then the last piece is education. So we provide an overwhelming amount of educational resources for the women business owner and her employees because we’re all about developing strong businesses. We want to be the organization that women business owners rely on for growth and success, so we’ve put in last year alone about $25,000.00 in scholarships for women business owners to utilize to develop their team or to develop themselves. It’s about growing the economy – we do it one woman business owner at a time.

Leisa: That’s fabulous. There you have it, another extraordinary woman doing extraordinary things. I’m Leisa Holland Nelson, President and Co-fonder of ContentActive, Houston’s leading web and mobile design and development company. You can find me at ContentActive.com or follow me on Twitter @LHNelson. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.